Sibling with a passing resemblance might be able to face-unlock your Pixel 8 Pro

MotorTransportation8 wrote on Reddit that his brother, who shares some of their features but is not an identical twin and has a very different appearance from them, was able to use face unlock to access his Pixel 8 Pro.

After installing my 8 pro today and coming home, my brother (who I bought the pixel 7 pro for last year) took my phone to look at it and he can unlock it every time with his face (my face works perfectly fine as well) i think we have some of the same facial features but we are both very different

It’s unclear how Google decides what best matches the face templates stored on a phone, as MotorTransportation8 claims their father, who they say looks more like them than their brother, was unable to unlock their phone.

…after unlocking it for my brother I tried with my dad who I look more like and it didn’t work, but I guess Google thinks my brother and I are twins.

Regardless, it is rather disturbing to discover that the Pixel 8 Pro can be robbed by someone who doesn’t even look exactly like you. This is because this year’s Face Unlock system has been certified by Google as meeting the criteria for the highest Android biometric class.

On the other hand, the Pixel 7 had a weaker system and so Google didn’t let you do anything other than unlock the phone with it.

Unlike the iPhone’s Face ID system and the Pixel 4’s Face Unlock system which creates a depth map of the user’s face, the Pixel 8 has no such hardware. And yet, Google says it’s reliable enough to be used for banking and payment apps.

This means that once MotorTransportation8’s brother unlocks his phone, he can do everything from using it for payments to accessing password managers. But MotorTransportation8 can’t get revenge on him by doing the same thing to him.

Indeed, firstly, their brother has a Pixel 7 Pro which requires the use of the fingerprint scanner for payments. And secondly, it turns out, at least in the case of MotorTransportation8, that the Pixel 7 Pro has a better face unlock system than the Pixel 8 Pro.

Just to make sure I wasn’t going crazy I set my face to his p7p and it wouldn’t let him unlock it until he retrained it on his face. I just find it funny that they are now saying the more secure unlock feature will let him in. my bank account no problem but its p7p wouldn’t even let it past the lock screen

While the incident certainly seems alarming, we haven’t heard any other stories on the subject. Pixel 8The face unlock system has been bypassed by someone until now. Plus, Google already says phones can be unlocked by someone very similar to you.

Additionally, face unlock systems, including Apple’s Face ID, are not foolproof, with Apple saying the chance of an unauthorized person cheating its system is one in a million.

That the chances of Pixel 8The face unlock system of getting cheated by someone is equally weak is not known. THE Pixel 8The face unlock system only uses the front camera and machine learning to verify a user.